Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1.04 Review: Everybody Deserves a Second Chance

Anyone that has yet to watch
tonight’s episode of Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D., titled ‘Eye Spy’, then now would probably be a good time to
do that. As always, this is not a spoiler free blog. THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS! You’ve been warned.

Certainly not the best episode
that I expect this series will produce, but it was an interesting one. I really
liked getting to see Skye and Ward’s chemistry, and then to see – to put it
like Skye – AC and Skye bouncing off each other. It’s easy to say Skye is my
favourite character in this series. She’s such a funny, bubbly, dorky, smart
girl that just works well on camera.

The way this episode began, I was
a little weirded out by the suited men in masks. It almost felt like the
opening to one of those dance movies. Don’t get me wrong, those movies can be
quite entertaining, but I didn’t understand the need to include that in an
episode of this series. Thankfully, that was explained away in a nice little
way, so no big issues with that.

There were some great moments to
this episode, though, that were rather comedic. I absolutely adore Fitz. His
love for snacks, shown at the end of the episode and in his desire to have them
in the van, was great. I also really loved when he did that yes fist motion in
the van, when he learned he wouldn’t be going out on the op, just staying in
there. The name they gave the van was also perfect, short bus suited it
perfectly, particularly because Coulson didn’t seem to like it, which was funny
in and of itself. It was also really great to learn Ward is ticklish behind the
ears, so randomly funny. And a number of lines were quite hysterical in this
episode as well.

While I don’t think this series
will ever win valued awards, it is a fun little show to watch. Some interesting
topics are broached in regards to the human condition, though not always done
to the best of their abilities. This show seems to favour lighter tones, rather
than the grittier temperaments. My issue with that is that darker, serious
topics sometimes need a bit more drama to them, and I haven’t seen that quite
concretely in this series. Don’t get me wrong, the characters sometimes come
across that way towards each other, and the situations, but the grandeur to the
rest of the aspects of this show – like music, lighting, cinematography – seem
to take away from those real moments. It very much feels like a superhero
movie, where the music swells and you know the hero will make it out alive.
Perhaps that’s the difference between this series and Joss Whedon’s other
series’, before he was never afraid to push the envelope, to kill a valued
character just to show that anyone could be killed. So that needs some work
this time around.

This episode definitely added a
bit to the mystery surrounding Coulson. The fact that Akela had noticed Coulson
had come back too different than would be reasonable for the situation, helped
to produce alarm bells regarding the mystery. I continue to question what they
did do to him. I just hope that mystery isn’t prolonged for too long that
people begin to lose hope that it will ever be solved, and simply give up on
watching this show.

There are still many questions I
have, other than the one about Coulson. Who is Skye? Who did she have to erase
from technological existence? Was it her identity? Is she still working for the
Rising Tide? From next week’s promo, it seems like she is, but wasn’t that
resolved in last week’s episode? What was the Cavalry? What happened that made
May dislike combat so much? So many questions, not enough answers.